Cognitive and neural correlates of navigation in virtual environments (SQUARELAND)
This research project focuses on wayfinding and navigation in unknown, familiar, real, and virtual environments. It is based on the fundamental question how spatial information are acquired, stored and represented in memory, how they are revised and used in certain cognitive processes.
Participants are actively or passively moving through computer-based virtual environments. These environments appear to be quite realistic so that participants' wayfinding behavior may be investigated without disrupting the natural connection between perception and action. This technique is additionally combined with functional brain imaging (fMRI). The aim of this project is to find neural activity during wayfinding under controlled but realistic conditions.
The SQUARELAND-project is supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) grant HA5954/1-1
Contact: Dr. Kai Hamburger, Dipl.-Psych. Florian Röser, Prof. Dr. Markus Knauff
Project number: HA5954/1-1
The project is funded from october 2009 till september 2011
Publications
Röser, F., Hamburger, K., Krumnack, A., & Knauff, M. (2012). The structural salience of landmarks: results from an on-line study and a virtual environment experiment. Journal of Spatial Science, 57(1), 37-50.
Hamburger, K., & Knauff, M. (2011). SQUARELAND: A virtual environment for investigatiing cognitive processes in human wayfinding. PsychNology, 9(2), 137-163. (Link)
Röser, F., Hamburger,K., Knauff, M. (2011). The Giessen virtual environment laboratory: human wayfinding and landmark salience. Cognitive Processing, 12(2), 209-214.
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